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This won’t surprise Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or GOP old bull Sen. John McCain -- the largest chunk of the Republican Party is now very conservative. According to a new PPP poll, which has Sen. Ted Cruz the top choice for the 2016 Republican nomination, those who describe themselves as “very conservative” make up 39 percent of the splintered party. Add in those who consider themselves “somewhat conservative,” and the right-leaning voters comprise 76 percent of the party. In the new poll of 743 Republican primary voters, 1 percent called themselves “very liberal,” 4 percent “somewhat liberal,” and just...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is already reaping benefits from his 21-hour stand against President Barack Obama's new health care law, as a new poll shows him leading the way for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Cruz garnered 20 percent support compared to 17 percent for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., 14 percent for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, 11 percent for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and 10 percent each for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., according to a survey by Public Policy Polling released Friday. Cruz improved 8 percent from a similar poll in July.

Article II, Section 1, of the Constitution provides, in pertinent part: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.**snip**This political season, the eligibilities of Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal and Ted Cruz are the subject of debate. As much as we want certainty, the term “natural born...

Likable, authentic, and working to expand the Republican Party? Of course Rubio has been overtaken in the polls by Cruz, whose convictions match up perfectly with the GOP base. This summer, in an act of literary masochism, I read not one but two books about Marco Rubio. I came away from his memoir, An American Son, and Manuel Roig-Franzia’s excellent biography, The Rise of Marco Rubio, with the queasy feeling many Republicans must have had when they began reading Obama books in 2007 or 2008: this isn’t the guy you want to see on the other side of the line....

From Blackstone, year 1765: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_4_citizenships1.html Yet the children of the king's embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England's allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were...

Is he a natural-born citizen or isn’t he? The question has been a nagging part of Barack Obama’s life ever since his first presidential campaign. No amount of birth certificates and sworn statements from state officials in Hawaii, his birthplace, seemed capable of putting the issue to rest. The “birther” movement continues pressing the question even today, five years after Obama’s election to the presidency. The question nags anew, but this time Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is the focus because he was born in Canada to an American mother and Cuban father. By law, his mother’s U.S. citizenship automatically...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was met with enthusiastic cheers from an "adoring" audience during his address at a conservative summit on Saturday, the friendliest of any of the potential 2016 presidential hopefuls to speak at the Defending the Dream summit. The event, hosted by Americans for Prosperity, drew a handful of other conservative stars and would-be presidential contenders: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R ) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R ) all spoke. But according to The Washington Post, none received so warm a welcome as Cruz. He was met with chants of "Run, Ted, run!"...

This article appeared on Daily Caller on August 26, 2013. As we head into a potential government shutdown over the funding of Obamacare, the iconoclastic junior senator from Texas — love him or hate him — continues to stride across the national stage. With his presidential aspirations as big as everything in his home state, by now many know what has never been a secret: Ted Cruz was born in Canada. (Full disclosure: I’m Canadian myself, with a green card. Also, Cruz has been a friend since his days representing Texas before the Supreme Court.) But does that mean that...

Howard Dean excoriated Candy Crowley’s interview with Ted Cruz on CNN Sunday morning, calling it “a very long interview with very little content,” and saying “God help us” if Cruz ever became more than a U.S. Senator.Cruz had pitched allowing people to buy health insurance across state lines as one of the policies he would put in place instead of Obamacare.“I don’t want the Texas insurance commissioner being up here in Vermont,” Dean said. “We have had universal health insurance for all our kids for twenty years. They have 22% of their children uninsured in Texas. I don’t want...

<p>Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) is the hottest commodity in Republican politics these days, winning rave reviews everywhere he goes on the I’m-not-announcing-anything-but-I-just-might-run-for-president tour.</p> <p>Today, Cruz heads to New Hampshire to raise money for the state Republican Party. If history is any guide, the Granite State will pose the toughest test thus far for the Texas Republican’s national ambitions.</p>

He may be a right-wing nut, but the Texas senator can beat a Democrat in a general election. Here's why There’s been some more buzz this week about Ted Cruz’s presidential prospects. The demagoguing senator took his first trip to Iowa just six months after being sworn in to office, and he’s pretty clearly reaching for the White House. Early reports are that it’s going well. And Rich Yeselson wrote a high-profile (and fascinating) essay arguing that, basically, Cruz is perfectly positioned for reaching the top of the Republican ticket. The focus of this piece is on Cruz’s general election...

Over the course of just two days, the Washington Post pounded its readers with 12 "birther" stories aimed at Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Headlines included, "Can Ted Cruz Run for President?", "Canadian Born Ted Cruz Releases Birth Certificate Amid Queries if He's Eligible for Presidential Run," "Ted Cruz: I am Not a Canadian," and "No, Ted Cruz "Birthers" are Not the Same as Obama Birthers":**snipThough there is no legal question as to Cruz's eligibility to run for president (Cruz was born an American citizen), the Post has spent the last 48 hours bedeviling the Hispanic senator with articles obviously meant...

Freshman Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and some other Republicans think they know why the GOP didn't win the last two presidential elections: They weren't conservative enough. "If you look at the last 40 years, a constant pattern emerges," Cruz told ABC. "Anytime Republicans nominate a candidate for president who runs as a strong conservative, we win. And when we nominate a moderate who doesn't run as a conservative, we lose." It's not a new thought, but it's dead wrong on several different levels. First of all you have to pretty far in right field to think John McCain and Mitt...

Sen. Ted Cruz hasn’t said whether he has presidential ambitions, but Sunday he won one of the first straw polls for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. The Texas Republican captured 45 percent of the 504 votes cast by attendees at the Western Conservative Summit, a day after drawing several standing ovations during his luncheon speech at the fourth annual conference. “We shall see what sort of crystal ball summiteers have in awarding that decisive nod to Sen. Ted Cruz, who was so magnificent from this platform,” said John Andrews, founder of the Centennial Institute at Colorado Christian University, which hosted...

A Marist poll released Wednesday indicates that Hillary Clinton is the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2016, and that there is a very crowded and tight field among Republicans. Yahoo asked voters: Which candidate are you backing and why? Here's one perspective. COMMENTARY | The latest Marist poll of potential presidential candidates shows a couple of interesting results. First, Hillary Clinton is blowing away other Democrats. Second, the Republicans appear to be bunched up with no clear front runner. Turning one's attention to the Republican field, one looks upon Ted Cruz, the junior senator from Texas. Hot Air,...

He may be a right-wing nut, but the Texas senator can beat a Democrat in a general election. Here's whyThere’s been some more buzz this week about Ted Cruz’s presidential prospects. The demagoguing senator took his first trip to Iowa just six months after being sworn in to office, and he’s pretty clearly reaching for the White House. Early reports are that it’s going well. And Rich Yeselson wrote a high-profile (and fascinating) essay arguing that, basically, Cruz is perfectly positioned for reaching the top of the Republican ticket. The focus of this piece is on Cruz’s general election viability....

Sen. Ted Cruz rejected questions Sunday over his eligibility to be president, saying that although he was born in Canada “the facts are clear” that he’s a U.S. citizen. “My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She’s a U.S. citizen, so I’m a U.S. citizen by birth,” Cruz told ABC. “I’m not going to engage in a legal debate.” The Texas senator was born in Calgary, where his mother and father were working in the oil business. His father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba in the 1950s to study at the University of Texas and subsequently became a naturalized citizen. President...

He’s opposed the Gang of Eight bill, but some think not aggressively enough. By Andrew Stiles Since taking office in January, Senator Ted Cruz has earned a reputation for being one of the most unapologetically outspoken lawmakers on Capitol Hill. So much so, perhaps, that when it comes to the Gang of Eight’s immigration-reform bill, of which Cruz has been one of the strongest Republican critics, it might seem like he’s been taking it easy.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was born in Canada but is qualified to become president should he mount a campaign in 2016 or beyond. Cruz was born in Calgary, and his father is from Cuba. But the Republican senator’s mother is from the first state of Delaware, which appears to settle the issue. Government officials didn’t exactly have to scramble for the information amid speculation the firebrand freshman senator was contemplating a presidential run and might be ineligible, considering similar questions about President Obama’s birth prompted the Congressional Research Office to compile a 2009 report to try to resolve the...

Ted Cruz’s address at the annual South Carolina Republican Party dinner Friday helped feed growing speculation that the freshman senator from Texas is eyeing a run for the White House in 2016 — and raised yet another round of questions about his eligibility to serve in the Oval Office. Mr. Cruz was born in Canada to an American-born mother and Cuban-born father, and was a citizen from birth — but that Canadian factor puts him in the company of other past candidates who have had their eligibility questioned because of the Constitution’s requirement that a president be a “natural born...